Our old nemesis The Pigman — the MRA blogger and one half of the cartooning team responsible for atrocities like this — has some thoughts on the Aurora shootings, specifically on the men who lost their lives to protect their girlfriends from gunfire. Their heroism makes him angry, much like the fellows on The Spearhead we looked at the other day. Here’s his complaint:
How’s that for inequity? How’s that for disposability? These guys appear to have sacrificed themselves for these people primarily because of their sex.
Well, no, I think they sacrificed themselves for their girlfriends because they loved their girlfriends.
After all, where are the guys who jumped in front of their best mate, or their dad or brother? And above all, where are the women who died saving their boyfriends?
There were many heroes in the Aurora shooting. Jonathan Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves died protecting their girlfriends. Stephanie Davies risked her life to keep a friend shot in the neck from bleeding to death. Other acts of heroism had less storybook endings: Marcus Weaver tried to shield a female friend. He was wounded but lived; she died. Jennifer Seeger tried to drag a wounded victim to safety, but fled when the shooter returned.
But the Pigman is interested in none of this:
This isn’t heroism, this is male disposability at its worst and by praising it society is encouraging it.Cheering these men’s actions is as reprehensible as it is stupid and discriminatory.
The heroes in Aurora acted quickly, and on instinct; they didn’t have time to stop to think. Is it possible that, in the cases of those men who tried to shield the women with them, gender socialization had something to do with what their instincts told them to do? Almost certainly.
But “male disposability” has nothing to do with it. We live in a society in which heroism, as an idea and as a cultural ideal, has been gendered male for thousands of years. In the stories we tell ourselves, the video games we play, the movies we watch (including The Dark Knight Rises) , the “hero with a thousand faces” is almost always male, and the damsel in distress is, well, almost always a damsel.
The Pigman ignores all this, instead attacking the three dead men as
foolish enough and unfortunate enough to fall for a lifetime of anti-male propaganda telling them to die for the nearest woman whenever the shit hits the fan.
I have no doubt that many are concerned with the feelings of the dead men’s survivors and wish I would just shut up.
But then he barrels ahead anyway:
But this is a simple case of “What you praise, you encourage,” and I for one think calling out those who encourage men to waste their lives for people worth no more than themselves is more important than being “sensitive”. Die for a child if you must, die for some guy on the verge of finding a cure for cancer if you must – die for someone no better than you simply because you have been taught to and you are a fool.
Had these men died protecting male buddies, would The Pigman have applied this calculus of worthiness to the beneficiaries of their heroism? Would he have suggested that the dead men thought they were worth less than their friends? Of course not.
The three men didn’t do what they did because they thought they were worthless or disposable. They did what they did because they wanted to protect those they loved. Others in the theater, like Stephanie Davies, risked their lives for friends, or people they didn’t even know. There’s nothing foolish or “wasteful” about putting yourself on the line to protect others. In every major disaster, whether natural, or like this one man-made, ordinary people emerge as heroes precisely because they are willing to put the lives and safety of other people ahead of their own.
Do these real-life stories of heroism play out in gendered ways? Often times they do. Men may be more willing to risk their lives to protect their wives or girlfriends; mothers may be more willing to risk their lives to protect their children.
In real life crises, it’s hardly surprising that people sometimes act like characters in these stories we tell ourselves. If you want to change how people act, you need to change these stories.
MRAs like to pretend that men are the “disposable sex” but in their hearts they know that’s not true. They’re well aware, as are we all, that our cultural narratives of heroism privilege and glorify men and put them at the center of almost every story. MRAs like The Pigman aren’t interested in expan ding our cultural narratives of heroism to include female heroes — nor are they willing to even acknowledge that there are such things as female heroes in the real world. They certainly don’t want more stories, more games, more films featuring female protagonists.
Instead they’d rather wrap themselves in the mantle of victimhood, and attack real heroes like Jonathan Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves as “white knights” or “fools.”
How people react in a crises reveals a lot about them. How MRAs like The Pigman, and like the Spearhead commenters I quoted the other day reacted to the Aurora shootings has certainly revealed a lot about them, none of it good.
Unfortunately, attitudes like theirs aren’t confined to the fringe that is the manosphere.
After hearing the stories of Blunk, McQuinn, and Teves, the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto tweeted “I hope the girls whose boyfriends died to save them were worthy of the sacrifice.”
After numerous readers responded to his remarks with outrage, Taranto offered an apology of sorts, along with an explanation that suggested he really didn’t understand why people were angry in the first place. When someone does something noble and heroic out of love, it’s not up to you to second guess their actions or their love. Taranto’s words not only dishonored “the the girls whose boyfriends died to save them;” it dishonored the heroes as well.
Like The Pigman, like the Spearhead commenters, Taranto has failed this test of his humanity.
Wait, is this finally the evidence of systematic misandry we’ve all been waiting for Steele to provide? That the male villain in a movie with a male hero, where most of the characters are male, was “disposable”?
But the ways that gender roles and patriarchy actually hurts men, those don’t fit into his definition of misandry at all?
Really, Steele? This is stupid, even for you.
Mikey
http://www.soa.org/news-and-publications/publications/other-publications/monographs/m-li01-1-toc.aspx
http://jerrymondo.tripod.com/lgev/id1.html
Get dunked, get dunked, get dunked. Life expectancy differences between sexes is more then just environmental and social factors. Biology does have a greater role that you are purposefully understating.
I called you out for the pseudo intellectual you are since day one, and you remain just that.
Sometimes our preferences change as we mature. For example, both me and my sister once thought we only liked guys taller than us. A bit unfair, perhaps, but we have very tall male friends and relatives in general, so it was also a matter of familiarity.
Now, my sister’s dating a shorter guy, and she couldn’t be happier.
Maybe it’s not so much settling as realizing the things you thought were important weren’t so important after all.
Citation needed, Nikan, really?
Oh, wait, you don’t see how that reveals you to be a nit-picking gender-essentialist who’s trying to pull down any heroics on the behalf of women, and how it shows a deep-seated hatred of women that becomes more apparent with every word you type?
Odd. Everybody else can see it.
@pecunium
Ahh yes it is indeed a dutch principle to be skint about money in general and in business meetings and between friends everyone pays their own meal… I was more thinking dating-wise. It’s considered a sign of a relationship when one party, traditionally (aka old-fashioned way) the man but nowadays also the woman, pays the dinner. So it’s not particularly dutch to halve the bill on a romantic date, despite the saying. The dutch are not exempt to the traditional “dating rules” is what I was trying to say, or have not been until, you know, feminism. It’s certainly a modern custom to not expect sex for dinner, and split the bill on a date. Of course splitting the bill does not mean the romantic date will not involve sex nowadays. Seriously, I don’t get why the MRAs are not lining up to date feminist women who follow this clearly feminist-influenced custom of not exchanging food for sex, it seems like a win-win to them. But then again, maybe it’s better they remain clueless.
That’s what my friends have educated me about dutch customs as part of my “integration”, so it may of course depend on the background of individuals somewhat. English as second language, btw, so if something I say is a bit unclear please let me know!
Really Steel? I think that men dying younger and suffering more ill health is probably the best possible argument for male disposability. Men are pushed to eat imbalanced diets which results in long term ill health, often work in unsafe workspaces where employers don’t give a shit what happens, because its cheaper for them to pay insurance than to ensure proper safety standards, and are expected to be making more money than their wives even if it means men are cut off from their family and friends which help allieviate stress. And all of this is happening in a society that doesn’t do anything to commemorate the shit your average working Joe goes through. Nothing.
lol. ‘why research anything when i can concoct a just-so story that explains it’
more excuses from mikey.
Ugh, the sense I get is that Nikan thinks dating someone disabled is worse than being shot. That whole *** thing, its like its some taboo that leaves you spiritually unclean or something.
And wow Nikan, you really are a piece of work.
I will never understand how the MRAs cannot see that the very things they observe hurting men (MISANDRY!!1) are the other side of the coin that is hurting women. It’s really quite frustrating to see some half-decent concerns get smothered with the inane verbal diarrhea of misogyny, and imagined or minor slights experienced by insecure young guys getting blown out of proportion because of unrealistic expectations on themselves and others… I’ve not read the “red pillers'” fora enough to lose what little naivety I have left, I guess, to still feel this way. I keep hoping they’d earnestly engage in discussion without the hatred to help fixing everyone’s problems.
/random rant
Eline…. the only thing that gives me any hope, some days, is that I wasn’t too, too far from their way of thinking, not so long ago. People can change, and for the better. Just because they’re in a cesspool doesn’t mean they can’t climb out.
@eline
I think the main thing I’ve learned commenting here is that MRAs are part of the movement because of the hatred, not in spite of it. I used to think, “Hey! Maybe if I argue with citations and point out the contradictions in their arguments they’ll realize that they can help men without hating women!” But it’s just not the case.
Pretty much every MRA who comes here to argue eventually shows their hateful side. All their contradictions, their talking in circles, etc, is just a smokescreen. They know why they’re in a movement that they have to constantly lie about and pull “no True Scotsman” on, and it’s not because they’re concerned about men as a whole.
I mean, you can make the argument that people are raised in a sexist society and started adulthood with some weird views, I know I was one, but if someone is like “I’ve been an MRA for ten years” it’s pretty clear what’s going on.
Eline, I’m right there with you.
I’ve seen the top ten items that the MRM are working on, and I think many of the issues DO need to be worked on and that society needs to be made aware of them.
Some of the MRM problem stems from having more conservative men wanting to “go back to simpler days” that really reflects the 1950’s ideal, but doesn’t reflect the actual experience of the time period.
Some of it stems from men who have experienced geniune horror and shit and its the only place they have to vent.
And a large part of the movement stems from abusive types who want to spread their poison so its easier for them to hide their shittiness.
Howard, if you don’t mind my asking, what pulled you out?
Nikan: So, Ugh, tell me, then I must also be a misanthropist when I say that a human can’t empathize with a great white shark?
No. Just stupid.
Unless you are saying men and women are different species, as with human beings and slime molds (though there are some examples of the former who seem less pleasant than the latter).
If that’s what you are arguing, then it’s more than just stupid, it’s stupid of so pure and refined a form that the powers of credulity are strained, and the better answer is that you are trying to change the subject because your previous position is completely untenable, and you hope (as with waving a cape a bull) that you can distract us.
Disabled people are not worth less than the presently able-bodied.
eline: No worries. I’m not dutch, so my understandings are at a remove, and I was sharing them/looking for clarification.
@Ugh: I totally agree with you. I was saying on the other thread, I have a cut-off line. If a person is willing to engage–I mean, even in a tiny way–I’ll cut them a little slack.
I end up engaging trolls. Because they pretend.
Steele threw a fit when Tom Martin crossed a line so obvious he could see it. And I kind of smiled a little and nodded, because that’s point.
Make those lines visible. Call them out.
If they can be horrified by the hate, if they care at all about things like actual decency, they can be reached.
Which comes around to the question of what pulled me out.
A series on the Yes Means Yes blog was my turning point, actually. A series on Rape Culture. I started out completely unconvinced, but it became obvious in a real hurry that real people were being hurt in a real way.
Anybody who still has the decency to get to the end of that sentence and say, well, that’s wrong. Nobody should be abused and exploited like that, that’s a person who can be deprogrammed.
@howard
That’s a good point. It’s hard to tell the difference between the people who are actually hateful and the ones who just haven’t thought it through. I think the line is when they’re confronted by an actual contradiction in their beliefs and refuse to address it. Unfortunately, you generally have to play the talking in circles game for a while before you can actuallly get them to stand by any beliefs.
@howard
And, pessimistic as I am about it, a part of me does hope that Varpole, on some level, realizes that he’s in a hate movement and that hate is wrong. And that the reason he writes pages of ridiculous crap while ignoring the insanely man-hating responses of his allies is because his position has nothing to do with reality.
@Ugh
Yep. It’s pretty well impossible to avoid wasting your time in this pursuit… but I spent more than enough time as a jack-booted enforcer of the patriarchy. I owe back some time to try to show them the way out.
I’d say he’s firmly in the “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” frame of mind. If he ignores it, maybe it will go away.
He’s conflicted, because he wants to get us to agree with him too; so he has to make more of the same sorts of stupid arguments, and then get taken to school again; which he has to pretend isn’t happening.
Eventually he will change his mind, or leave, or end up like Eoghan, or NWO, or Nikan, or Tom Martin.
Imagine a world without public sector jobs, without government. What would you do?
Go for the chainsaw. It’s the only way to win Thunderdome.
All I wanted was to give you a vivid example of the desperation a T-fueled brain experiences after a few years of celibacy: a guy who always boasted to prefer the glamour model type, now has to settle for that.
Oh, that poor man! Dating a non-model! Why must men suffer so? WHY, WORLD, WHYYYY????
Hee hee…you’re jealous of him, aren’t you?
This is why we were so accommodating towards Mister Al, because he (occasionally) recognised when his notional allies had overstepped the mark and had the courage to call them out over it. I forget the exact incident, but I do remember him explicitly distancing himself from Paul Elam.
Which is why it’s a real shame that he carried on down the same pointlessly self-destructive road, because he seemed bright enough and young enough to grasp just how much damage it was doing to himself.
Hell, I still have a lot to learn, and I left the MRM something like 8 months ago. I think, I’m not really good at judging time.
And why have you chosen to leave the MRM behind aworldanonymous?